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Kyle McDonald
Instructor: Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
April 5th, 2016
Memory: Do Your Emotions Distort or Enhance It?

Merriam Webster defines emotion as a conscious mental reaction

subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object
and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body
(emotion). In other words emotion is a very powerful reaction that our mind has
and it is capable of changing our mood, reactions, and as I will be exploring in my
paper, our memory. The aspect of emotional memories that I will be examining first
is how the strength of a memory can be increased by emotion.
I remember the first day of a school at every new school I started at, all the
way back to kindergarten. This is because of the high levels of emotion involved in
an experience like this. The feelings of being scared, excited, and curious all rolled
up in to one day. On my first day of high school I remember wondering what kind of
friends I would make and how I would do in my classes. According to the US
National Library of Medicine long term memories are influenced by the emotion
experienced during learning as well as by the emotion experienced during memory
retrieval (Buchanan). Emotion is able to enhance memory because it activates parts
of the brain such as the amygdala, hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex. When I

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was entering these new schools for the first time these parts of my brain were being
stimulated more than times I wouldnt be experiencing emotion as much.
In order to better understand how memory is enhanced by emotion it is
important to know what parts of the neurological system control memory and how
they are directly influenced by emotion. The first two parts of the brain that are
activated in making a memory while impacted by emotion are the hippocampal
complex and the amygdala. Liz Phelps, a member of the Department of Psychology
at Washington Place, explains both of these. There are two medial temporal lobes
linked to two independent memory systems that make up the hippocampal complex
and the amygdala. According to Phelps, these two neurological systems interact with
each other in subtle but important ways. She then states, The hippocampal
complex, by forming episodic representations of the emotional significance and
interpretation of events, can influence the amygdala response when emotional
stimuli are encountered. These are two completely different neurological systems
yet when emotion is involved it can cause them to work together. The most
important thing that they do is start encoding memories and the early stage of
consolidation. This is one of the reasons that emotion is able to increase the ability
to retain a long-term memory.
Having emotions intertwined with our memories can make them stand out a
lot more compared to the ones without much emotion. When I turned fourteen, I
was a freshman in high school, so to celebrate I went to the movies with a few
friends. After enjoying whatever idiotic film we watched we exited the theatre, and
as we exited we saw a group of girls from our high school. One of my friends did not

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go to the same high school as me so before my friends and I stepped in to my moms
minivan he yelled to one of the girls hey Kyle thinks youre really hot! I didnt
actually think she was, but I was so surprised, embarrassed, and mad at him because
I would have to see her and her friends at school the following Monday. In an article
by M Davis and PJ Whalen at the Department of Psychiatry at the Emory School of
medicine they discuss stimulation to memory from emotion. According to them A
stimulus that predicts an aversive outcome will change neural transmission in the
amygdala to produce the somatic, autonomic and endocrine signs of fear, as well as
increased attention to that stimulus In other words, when you feel a heightened
sense of endangerment, emotion, or fear your brain activity is heightened. This
allows for people to make stronger memories when put in these situations. I knew
that when I felt that fear of embarrassment it was not a feeling or memory I would
soon forget.
Despite this information stating that sudden spurts of emotion can increase
your ability to make lasting long-term memories, you can also inhibit your ability to
make a lasting memory. In an article written by Mara Mathers and Mathew
Sutherland, distinguished members of the American Psychological Association, it is
stated that large surges of shock can cause blurred memories. The authors use the
example of hearing a gun shot. They stated, If you experience a sudden brief
increase in arousal, this should increase the degree to which you remember high
priority neutral information presented shortly before or after the arousing event.
What this means is that if the gunman were to fire his weapon you would recognize
and focus on the weapon rather than what the gunman looked like. So in this sense

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youre able to form a new long-term memory, but it is not one hundred percent
coherent.
Taking all of this information into consideration, it is hard to determine
whether or not emotion is capable of enhancing memory. I remember the Christmas
morning when I got my first paintball gun. It was red and the brand was Spyder. It
was a piece of junk gun but I was overjoyed to have received it. I remember all the
fine details about that paintball gun and how it felt, but I dont remember anything
else about that moment. I cant remember the time of morning or how old I was, or
the reactions of everyone around me. All I remember is the happiness and
thankfulness I had for my new gift. I remember playing my first game of paintball
with it, but not much of those to follow. When I got my next paintball gun I
remember less about receiving it. I got it for my birthday and couldnt wait to try it
out. However even though it was much nicer than my first paintball gun it wasnt as
special because it was not my first. The emotion that I felt when I got that first
paintball gun was what etched it in to my memory.
The conclusion that I have come to is that an emotional memory can stand
out more but they are more incoherent than unemotional memories. The reason for
the memory standing out more is the heightened brain activity. However even
though the brain activity is increased your emotions are still flared and as a result
cause memories to be blurred.
Overall I would say that emotion enhances memory. Emotion stimulates the
hippocampus complex and amygdala causing them to make more active. This
increased stimulation in the neurological system causes both of them to cooperate

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in a way that they would not usually do. Despite increased brain activity sudden
increases of emotion can cause long-term memory to be blurred. As a result I have
come to the conclusion that memory can cause you to make long term memories
that stand out more, but the memory is more likely to be incoherent.

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Works Cited

Buchanan, Tony W. "Retrieval of Emotional Memories." Psychological

Bulletin. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 6 Mar. 2008. Web. 5 Apr.
2016.

M, Davis, and Whalen PJ. "Result Filters." National Center for Biotechnology
Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 6 Jan. 2001. Web. 6
Apr. 2016.

Mathers, Mara, and Mathew Sutherland. "The Selective Effect of Emotional

Arousal on Memoral." American Psychological Association, Feb. 2012.
Web. 6 Apr. 2016.

Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.

Phelps, Liz. "Result Filters." National Center for Biotechnology Information.

U.S. National Library of Medicine, 14 Apr. 2004. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.